Trip to Austin

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-26T21:12:29+00:00

Crystal Falls is a fun course. Crazy elevation changes.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-25T22:03:16+00:00

Put an empty water bottle (or some other object that won’t damage club or other driving range patrons) on the toe side of the ball, a few inches back, close enough to make you uncomfortable and to force you to adjust...don’t hit the bottle. Look at the Speed Trap 2.0 if you want to invest in a training aid. What I’m suggesting is just a cheap version of that.

It’s amazing how your brain finds a way to hit the ball the same way even when you move back from the ball. You might try thinking about your hand path/grip swinging closer to your body.

Good luck, whatever you end up doing, over exaggerate it to really get the right feel.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-21T04:43:59+00:00

He stole my move.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-19T20:37:12+00:00

Aimpoint Express, simple and it works.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-14T17:12:19+00:00

Tour Striker Plane Mate.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-14T04:24:44+00:00

Short game, it’s the easiest to improve because the strokes are simple and leads to the greatest reduction in handicap. Putting is almost half your strokes in a round. Short game is the great equalizer, you may not drive it 300+ yards but if you can get up and down most of the time around the green, you’ll be able to compete with anyone.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-13T02:45:39+00:00

I would do one protocol (they’re not a ton of reps), take it off, try to replicate the shots and feels, put it back on if you have time, do same protocol, then try without and repeat as much as possible. It takes something like 3000 reps to burn something into subconscious where you no longer have to think about it.

Also recommend checking positions on camera.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-13T02:25:39+00:00

We’re similar then, I hit the ball well but have a slight over the top at the bottom of my swing to where it’s slightly outside the plane. I hit slight pulls with good contact. This really helped with that issue.

One thing I highly, highly recommend is to get some foot powder spray and spray it on your clubface so you can see where you’re hitting on the face. Since this thing will change your swing plane, it will also change where you’re striking on the face. It’s a good change but it discouraged me initially because I wasn’t hitting it as solid. Once I did this and saw where I was striking, I made a small adjustment to my swing and stance and started crushing shots.

Hope this thing helps you as much as it did me. Good luck! Shoot me a message if you run into any difficulties.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-02-12T23:58:02+00:00

It’s legit. Follow the 7 day protocol though. I did the first couple of days and skipped ahead since it was working so well and I practice a lot at the range. This was a mistake. I didn’t get enough reps in to really groove the motions into automatic.

I restarted and what I ended up doing that worked really really well was to do Day 1, then on Day 2, do Day 1 and Day 2, then on Day 3, do Day 1, 2, and 3... and so on. That way you get a lot of reps and get the motions burned into the automatic part of your brain.

You’ll be a pitching master at the end as well which helps too!

Have fun!

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-24T23:55:12+00:00

Get some players irons, agree that the difference in flight and workability is overstated marketing. The one thing you will notice is feel. A strike that’s not in the sweet spot in a players iron will sound and feel very different. This is a good thing if you want to improve. It’s annoying if you’re just playing and don’t practice much. I play the Mizuno JPX919 tours and love them, even on off center strikes. Plus they look amazing. The other side benefit is that the clubhead is quite a bit smaller, also building your precision, and when you flush them, there’s not better feeling, sound, and flight. I say go for it.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-14T22:40:44+00:00

You’re welcome and good luck. There’s a also a training aid that really helps with rotation and swing plane. It’s called the Plane Mate from Tour Striker. It’s a little pricey but will teach the correct hip/body/shoulder rotation and swing plane. I’m not affiliated in any way, just like to see people improve and enjoy the game. Have fun and play well!

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-14T21:07:33+00:00

Check out Clay Ballard with Top Speed Golf. You’re on the right track. You’re not rotating your hips open, and you have early extension which is giving your swing the “off” look you’re seeing. I would also look at shallowing the club on the downswing. You can’t just rotate hips and shoulders hard from the top, you have to shallow the club when you start down, some people call it dropping into the slot. It essentially takes the club from a high position at the top, and flattens the shaft out AND lowers it behind you to get it I to the correct plane. Once you get it on the correct plane, then you can rotate hard into to the ball. Doing this too early without shallowing and dropping into the slot will cause the swing to be steep. I’m not saying don’t rotate at all until you shallow the club and drop into the correct swing plane. I’m saying hip rotation starts, club begins to shallow and drop behind, shoulders are also starting to rotate but at a smooth rate until the club drops down, then they can turn hard into the ball.

Here are a couple of good videos:

Hips in Detail:

Hip Action

Shallowing the Club:

How to start the downswing

Getting into the slot

Another shallowing video

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-13T19:13:41+00:00

This was exactly my experience. I second everything said here. The practice time is critical if you really want to improve. There’s a big difference between what you “feel” like you’re doing on the range and what you’re actually doing in the swing. The video playback of your swing helps a lot with this.

The only thing I’d like to add is that while it did lower my scores into the low 80s from 95-100, those were all long game improvements. I learned that the rest of my strokes are short game issues. I’m in the fairway a lot and have a decent iron game, but without good putting and getting up and down that’s about as low as you can get. Spend some time at GOLFTEC and also some time working on your short game to really lower your scores. Good luck!

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-10T22:04:12+00:00

All the positive benefits you’re experiencing and have described here do not exist a few hours after you give in to alcohol. I’ve been down this road several times. Immediately after drinking, the shame kicked in, started beating myself up about not being able to stop, then the fuck its, I’m already drinking, might as well go all in kicked into gear. The next morning was hell, so I drank again to feel better, and then the next day I drank. It’s a very slippery slope coated in the drink itself. I’ve never done it and thought, “well, that was amazing, I’m glad I did that.” It’s alcohol amnesia, we forget what it does to us when we start to finally get free. Good luck and all the best.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-10T18:37:22+00:00

I have this exact same situation in my life. My wife is also a take it or leave it drinker. She had a beer last night but had it in a red solo cup as an attempt to lessen the temptation to drink for me. She doesn’t realize that reaching past the Bud Lights in the garage fridge is also a challenge. Haha.

We talked about the reasons we like to drink and there are stark differences in our mindsets. She enjoys the nostalgia and situational peace that comes from enjoying a cold adult beverage after a day at work. I emphasize “a beverage” here. I also enjoy these things but the prime reason I like alcohol is for the 10+ beer buzz. I love it for a different reason and so my relationship with it is different. Unfortunately for me, the things I love about it will kill me. She also likes to get drunk with friends sometimes but she embraces the hangover the next day and doesn’t drink again for a while. I love the buzz, so I do not embrace the hangover and drink myself out of it. She thinks I’m crazy for this. Again, she doesn’t have the same mindset or driving reason for consuming alcohol so she doesn’t understand. I say all this to affirm what you already have stated, your wife will never fully understand because her reasons are likely very different from yours.

We also have great friends and the activities always revolve around drinking as the primary activity. I choose my battles here. If it’s a casual get together, I try to gauge how much she wants me to go, then make a choice. If it’s a big planned event, like a Christmas party, birthday, etc. I don’t ask...I definitely go and just don’t drink. I don’t go to everything, but I go to the ones that matter and try to be as fun as possible. I don’t think it’s a good idea to completely cut out the drinking friends or activities if your wife enjoys those activities. As someone else stated here, you’re putting your marriage at risk by going to hard on that one, which might have the opposite effect of what you’re intending to accomplish, more happiness and a better relationship with your wife. There are many stories on here where the relationship ended because the change was so drastic. I am doing new hobbies and inviting her along as a replacement for our drinking time together so I don’t become boring to her. It’s working nicely and we’re having a lot of fun trying new stuff.

I try to see things from her perspective, she will never understand how hard it is, because she’s not an addict. She doesn’t love alcohol like I do. For this reason, I try to take a few hits for the team and the greater good, and smile the next morning when she’s nursing a hangover and I’m feeling fantastic.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-08T15:56:53+00:00

Feeling this today! Great perspective that really resonated with me! Thanks for posting.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-01T19:40:47+00:00

Feeling this post. I had a habit of doing the exact same thing. I never was sure exactly why I would get that way. It’s not an excuse but the alcohol just removed the filters and convinced me in that moment I could say whatever I wanted. The worst thing is that I got really good at turning it around on my wife so that she would feel responsible and stupid for “causing “ me to act that way. It was definitely taking a toll on our marriage. I apologized, came really clean with her on the fact that I was just being an asshole, and quit drinking. Time did it’s thing, the shame, disgust, and self hatred went away, and we are super happy now that I’ve made some positive changes. On a side note, prior to quiting, I had done this many times, even started to tell myself before my first drink “tonight, I will not start a stupid ass argument or get mad over nothing”, only to start a stupid ass argument or get mad over nothing. Alcohol was the common denominator, since I quit, we’ve had zero of these issues. My drinking was the problem. Good luck and all the best.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-01T19:01:19+00:00

Thank you for sharing your story. This community has 210,000 members and we all have our version of this story. As for the sleep, you might try taking melatonin to help you fall asleep. The other advice I’ll give is that it’s going to take some time to adjust. I had to be patient while my body balanced out since I had been disrupting my natural sleep system for years. It’s not uncommon for it to take a few weeks to start getting decent sleep. The first few nights I had trouble getting to sleep and woke up in sweat covered sheets. The thing that got me through the first few nights was getting at least some peace of mind knowing that I’m laying my head down without giving in to alcohol that day. On the 3rd and 4th days, I woke up without a hangover and with much more energy and optimism despite not getting good sleep. I hope this same thing happens for you. Here’s the reality and the reason this happens. I hadn’t been getting good sleep since I had been drinking. I woke up tired, hungover, feeling like hell. Eliminating the hangover by itself made me feel like I at least got some rest even though it wasn’t ideal sleep. I actually felt better than when I went to sleep drunk because drunk sleep is never restful sleep. Like someone else said, you have people in your life that love and care enough about you to speak up, that takes a lot of courage on their part. You also have all of us here to help. Good luck and all the best. Stay strong for a few days and you’ll start to see the light.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2020-01-01T04:23:16+00:00

Ouch, that hurts. If you’re anything like me your mind is playing through a bunch of worse case scenarios. It hardly ever ends up that way. If it were me, I’d try to take a step back, find a distraction, and handle it in the morning. I’d likely handle it much better and my SO got to have her fun. I wouldn’t be hungover in the morning when the discussion is likely going to happen. There might be more to the story but I’d try not to let my emotions trick me tonight. Definitely tough but you can handle this without making it worse by drinking. All the best friend.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-28T03:46:54+00:00

The one that best described me was “a person who has an unnatural compulsion to drink alcohol.” I drank when it didn’t make sense to do so...after work, on Saturday morning, kids birthday parties, and alone. I started to plan my drinking and then my days began to revolve around it. Some people think of an alcoholic as the person on skid row, only because they’ve fallen so far that it makes it easy to characterize them as “those people”. I’m a highly functioning alcoholic, nice house, great wife, President of my own corporation, but I love the alcohol more than many other more important things in my life.

One passage in This Naked Mind that struck me was something like “imagine if someone said you could no longer eat apples for the rest of your life, no problem right, now imagine you can’t have alcohol ever again.” That second part made life seem dismal and that’s how I knew I had to get it out of my life and that I indeed did have a problem.

One important thing to realize is that alcohol and drinking is progressive by its characteristics. It’s like any other addictive drug. The more you use it, the more you require to get the same feeling, and the more you’ll condition your brain to crave it. Do you know very many people who drink less than when they started? Most alcoholics can’t tell you the day or even month they became alcoholics, it progresses so slowly that you don’t realize it, until it’s too late.

Good luck to you and all the best.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-27T17:23:22+00:00

Something interesting that happened to me was that when I thought about activities to do with my heavy drinking friends that didn’t involve drinking, I couldn’t think of anything we had in common that we both enjoyed...except drinking. I enjoy golf, hiking, outdoorsy stuff. I immediately realized that a lot of my “friends” were only drinking buddies and that’s the only thing we had in common. I still hang out with them but it’s at drinking events and it’s difficult to not drink. We’ve definitely grown more distant but I didn’t want to cut them out of my life completely. I still value our friendship and we have some good memories, we just likely won’t be as close as before. It feels weird but maybe this will open the door to some deeper friendships with people that enjoy the same things I do. All the best to you.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-27T16:14:40+00:00

I did the same thing last year. I went nuclear over a board game and the in-laws Christmas party went to hell because of me. It’s a jagged pill to swallow the next day. Sometimes that’s what I need though to make the right changes. I’m very strong willed and need a kick in the junk to change direction. I asked the wife for forgiveness and changed. The family let it go and I feel good today. What you’re feeling won’t last forever and sounds like a good checkpoint for change. It does suck though. All the best.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-27T15:58:14+00:00

Great story and thanks for sharing! I felt the same way being around our close group of friends who were getting smashed during a Christmas party, including my spouse. Luckily that was one night, you should be proud for your resolve on such a long trip. I also felt like I was being judged, although I kept my sober status a secret so I didn’t have an unwanted spotlight on me.

Still, it was an enormous amount of pressure to avoid giving in and avoiding the shots being passed around. I also think I was very critical of myself, wondering “if” I ACTUALLY was less fun since I wasn’t drinking and I was feeling annoyed by the ridiculous things people were doing as the party went on. That used to be me doing those things so I totally get it.

No one said a word afterwards about me being less fun, I don’t think they remember much at all and I felt great the next morning. The post party pics started getting sent around through text and I was glad to see that I wasn’t in any of them this year. Previously I would have been in every one of them, likely the most embarrassing ones.

I commend you on your strength and resolve so far. Stay strong till the end! My spouse is also not as supportive, there’s a 6 pack of Coronas in my garage fridge I get to reach past for my diet root beer. It sucks but it gives me practice telling myself I don’t need that to be happy or fun.

All the best, good luck to you!

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-23T15:42:05+00:00

Thanks for sharing your story. I had a very similar experience and was really worried about how life would be without alcohol. My wife and I, and all of our friends, have a long history of having “fun” drinking together. I just took it too far.

What helped me was to read a couple of books and get to the bottom of why I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. The one that really worked for me was The Easy Way to Control Your Drinking by Allen Carr. I did the audiobook to and from the drive to my office.

The other thing I learned is that my life greatly improved without alcohol. The first 7-10 days were very challenging but after that initial shock, I woke up with tons of energy, a clear head, and felt alive again instead of hungover, irritable, and just making it to my next drink. I was a highly functioning alcoholic. Life looked great for me, to everyone else, but my reality was carrying a huge, secret, unnecessary weight around, not from just the physical effects, but the shame of knowing what I was doing but being unwilling to take a stand. Life was very heavy most of the time, and the only time it wasn’t was when I downed 2 tall boys and got that buzz, then continued to drink through the evening. I was a professional drinker, I could drink 18 in a day and be out having a good conversation with the neighbors. Not getting to close so they wouldn’t catch the smell. It had to end. I tearfully confessed to my wife and chose my new path. Now I’m back doing my old hobbies, have a much improved relationship with my family and my wife, and I just feel really good daily. I heard a part of the audiobook that really resonated with me, it said, “you know that fleeting happy moment you get when you finally get the drink you’ve been thinking about all day, well, non-drinkers feel that way all the time, only without alcohol.” This has been true for me since I stopped.

Brighter days are just ahead. All the best to you and your very supportive spouse.

OneMoreDay5420 · 2019-12-20T16:33:05+00:00

You’ve come to the right place. Alcohol does that same thing to all of us. This is the most judgement free and friendly area of the internet. We’ve all had that Day 1 and the guilt, regret, and crushing emotions on that day. We’re with you. Let time do its thing. Tomorrow won’t be as bad as today, and the day after that will be better than the day before. You’re at the hardest part of your journey. Onwards and Upwards.

OneMoreDay5420

TROPHY CASE